Control of reporting a device's remaining battery energy level

In a wireless communication system comprising a base station that has an established radio-link-layer connection with a user equipment (UE) device, a method of controlling reporting a remaining battery energy level of the UE to the base station, the method comprising:

• a controller tracking an amount of time in which the UE operates in a radio-link-layer connected mode;
• the controller determining that the amount of time in which the UE has operated in the radio-link-layer connected mode has exceeded a predetermined threshold amount of time;
• and
• responsive to determining that the amount of time in which the UE has operated in the radio-link-layer connected mode has exceeded the threshold amount of time, the controller causing the UE to report to the base station the remaining battery energy level of the UE.

A wireless communication system comprising:

• a base station that serves a user equipment device (UE) over an air interface connection between the UE and the base station, wherein when the base station serves the UE, the UE has two mutually exclusive modes of operation:
• (a) a connected mode in which there the UE has an established radio-link-layer connection with the base station, and (b) an idle mode in which the UE lacks the established radio-link-layer connection with the base station;
• and
• a controller comprising at least one processing unit, data storage, and program instructions stored in the data storage and executable by the at least one processing unit to carry out operations, the operations comprising:
• (i) operating a timer for tracking an amount of time that the UE operates in the connected mode,
• (ii) based on the timer, determining that the amount of time that the UE has operated in the connected mode is greater than a threshold amount of time, and
• (iii) responsive to the determination and based at least in part on that the UE is operating in the connected mode, causing the UE to report to the base station a remaining battery energy level of the UE.